


Home

by notraelet



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Healing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Scisaac - Freeform, gosh i don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notraelet/pseuds/notraelet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac decides that it's time to visit the old Lahey home and he drags Scott with him- but a lot has changed in his absence and they find that some demons never really leave after all.</p><p>  <i>Scott realizes then, that there’s always going to be a part of Isaac in this basement.  There were pieces of him, stripped and cut away here, locked in this room, just as he himself had been trapped in that freezer.  This is why he said yes, this is why he tried to run and be a part of something he didn’t yet understand, why he’d thrown his life in Derek’s teeth and done whatever was asked of him.  The thought of it made his chest tighten painfully, and he squeezed hard at Isaac’s fingers, feeling his hand be gripped tight in turn.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

There’s a strand of caution tape strewn in the lawn, something left over from what used to be a crime scene. It’s pressed into the grass, ripped, the shiny plastic smudged with sand. Scott kicks at it with the toe of his shoe, glancing back one last time to his motorcycle, parked in the driveway, before he sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets, moving up to the door step with Isaac.

The Lahey house has never seemed quite so ominous as it does tonight, full of shadows and cobwebs, looming quietly in the darkness. Scott feels like he can still hear the screams, the cries for help from deep inside of it, but he can’t. The boy is standing next to him, his face carefully blank as he turns at the knob.

“-locked,” Isaac murmurs, his brow furrowing into his frown. “Can you fucking believe that?”

Scott only shakes his head, hands pressed firmly into his pockets as he takes a step back and looks over toward the living room window. There are curtains drawn over it, still and quiet. He doesn’t know why Isaac wanted to come here, can’t quite understand the need to say goodbye, but the last time the other boy set foot in this home, his face was bleeding and his father had laughed and said _well, that was your fault_.

“Probably… I dunno, standard procedure or something. What happens to houses when nobody lives in them anymore?”

And Isaac looks at him, as if the thought is something foreign, like he’d always just expected his old house to be there, waiting for him to come back.

Things don’t work that way.

“How the hell would I know? C’mon, the window in Cam’s old room never locked.”

Scott sighs again, wanting to say something, wanting to reach out and grab his arm and say _forget it, let’s just go home_ , but he doesn’t. He _can’t_. Part of him thinks that Isaac needs this. Part of him thinks that with all of the terrible shit that’s happened to Isaac recently, Scott can at least afford to help him with this.

So, when the other wolf slinks away, around the side of the house, Scott follows him without another word, even if he’s pretty sure that what they’re doing is breaking and entering- and people get arrested for stuff like that. Not that he wouldn’t be arrested many times over for all the things he’s been involved in, but as a general rule, Scott tries not to break any laws.

Isaac, it seems, is another story.

The window pops open, just like he said it would, and Isaac glances back toward Scott with a grin before lifting himself up. He either misjudges the distance or he intended on flailing a little, but once his upper body is through, his legs kick at the edge of the house, and Scott rolls his eyes before moving close and grabbing at Isaac’s feet, boosting him up and in.

There’s a crash that comes from inside that is, undoubtedly, Isaac falling to the floor. Scott curses low under his breath- this is technically illegal, what if they get caught?- but he doesn’t have time to worry, before Isaac’s hand is reaching through the window, grabbing onto Scott’s own, and pulling him in.

Scott manages not to tumble down, and lands a little more gracefully than Isaac had managed, although it takes him a few seconds to get his bearings.

Isaac is already looking around, the recent grin completely gone from his face- and it’s easy to see why. The room is empty, from the door to the window, the closet is gaping open. There are no clothes, no furniture, nothing but the indents of what might have been a bed on the carpet, and the lingering scent of dust and old sweat from the workers who came in and hauled everything off. It’s empty. Completely empty.

“Isaac-“

But he’s already gone, and Scott takes a step to follow after him, before stopping and closing his eyes, just listening to his frantic footsteps echo around the home. Into the living room, the kitchen, shoes pounding mud into the tile of the bathroom floor. His father’s room.

His room.

Scott waits for it to sink in, because he’s not sure if Isaac wants company right now, but after a moment, he doesn’t have much of a choice but to walk out, let his shoes creak down the old hallway, and join Isaac in the threshold of what he assumes was his bedroom. There’s-

“-nothing,” Isaac murmurs, finishing the thought for him. The taller boy moves into the room, fingers brushing against the staccato of the wall, and there’s a silence that manages to echo around them both, before Isaac speaks again.

“My bed- it was on the wall there. I had my computer over there, and my dresser…” There’s a pause, and Isaac turns toward the closet, throwing it open as if he expects to see anything but the emptiness. “…my clothes. I wanted to pick some up- since I was staying with you, and…”

Scott bites his lip, watching him for a long moment before moving toward him and resting a hand on his shoulder. Isaac doesn’t brush him off like he usually does, just swallows hard and stares into the darkness of his old closet, as if something would magically appear in there.

Did he really expect everything to just be here, exactly like he’d left it? Why hadn’t he come back with Derek, before all of this was taken away? Isaac’s thumb traces over the metallic groove of the closet handle, his gaze lowered for a moment before he crouches down. There’s a mark on the door, black with rubber, and he presses his fingers against it.

“…I kicked the door,” Isaac finally says, and Scott doesn’t know what to say, so he just stays quiet. “When we got the news about Camden. I screamed and I kicked the door, and I didn’t care what he did to me, because I was sure that there was nothing worse than what I was already feeling.”

There’s a long pause at that, and Scott opens his mouth to say something, before Isaac cuts him off.

“-but there was. I could have broken the door- how ungrateful. Can’t an old man get some peace and quiet after the death of his son? The Bite took my scars, but that doesn’t mean they were never there.”

“Your dad was a monster,” Scott finally says, hand tightening on Isaac’s shoulder, despite the crouch and the awkward half-kneel he has to do to keep contact. “He’s gone though, he can’t-“

“-I know that,” Isaac pushes him away then, his jaw set tight- like he’s trying not to hit Scott, or trying not to cry, it’s hard to tell which. “Everything else is gone- that mark all that’s left of me living here. Of me growing up in this house.”

There’s a pause, and Scott can’t empathize with him. He’s always grown up in the same place, never moved, never even went on a long vacation. He doesn’t know how it feels to suddenly not have a home anymore. His mom had bent over backwards to make sure of that, and he appreciates it more than he can ever convey- especially now, looking down at Isaac and watching him try to look for the evidence of his past and finding nothing but a faded scuff mark on the door.

“This was a bad idea,” he murmurs, taking a step back to give Isaac a little space. “We can get spare clothes for you- I mean, it might be Goodwill, but you don’t have to worry about not having stuff. Let’s go, alright?”

After he speaks, there’s a short silence, and he’s not sure if Isaac is going to argue with him or agree. Thankfully though, it seems to be the latter, and the other werewolf slowly stands, wiping his hands on his jeans with a little nod.

Scott tries not to let himself feel too much relief, but it’s there. This was a stupid idea, through and through, and he’s just glad that he managed to talk Isaac out of it before he got _really_ upset. He moves then, leading them out of Isaac’s old room and back through the hallway, where he remembers Camden’s room was, where they can climb back out the window and go home.

Maybe Allison is still awake- maybe he can catch her on instant messenger before she goes to bed. There’s still some leftover pizza in the fridge too. The night can be salvaged, they can still have some fun. Scott finds himself smiling at the thought, before realizing that the second set of footsteps isn’t there anymore.

He turns, moves back into the hallway, and suddenly the positive anticipation of the night squeezes out of his stomach, replaced with a booming feeling of dread.

Isaac is standing there, still as a statue, his gaze set on the door leading down into the basement.

“…come on,” Scott whispers, his voice barely louder than an exhale. He reaches for Isaac’s wrist, and this is bad, this was such a bad idea, how did he let Isaac talk him into this? “ _Isaac_ , we should leave.”

But Isaac pulls away from his grasp again, completely ignoring him- and the motion seems to have spurred the taller boy into action, and in one fluid movement, he reaches out and yanks the door open. He pulls almost too hard, and sends it slamming back against the wall- a noise that Scott cringes at- before pausing at the top of the stairs.

“You don’t have to go down there,” Scott tries again, his voice almost pleading this time. “There’s nothing for you there. You’re here now- you live with me and my mom, you never have to go down there again. Isaac- _Isaac_ , are you-“

“-there’s nothing down there,” Isaac finally murmurs, his voice a little shaken. The first step creaks dangerously when he steps down on it, and his hands are drawn tight into fists. “It’s just like the rest of the house, Scott. There’s nothing- no, I need to do this.”

And he stops there, turning back up on the stairs. He’s gone down far enough so that he’s shorter than Scott, and in the darkness, all that Scott can really make out is the light reflecting off of his eyes, but they’re- almost pleading, all the same.

“…but I don’t think I can do it alone.”

A pin could have dropped in that silence, and Scott is suddenly reminded of the way he first felt when he walked down this staircase, behind Derek. This basement had a personality then, in the way that a torture chamber or a prison in a horror movie might. There was a dread that dribbled from the walls, as if the screams and cries for help had somehow become engrained with the paint and plaster. Bad things have happened here, terrible things. And now, Isaac is asking him to go down there again.

He can’t say no.

Scott just nods once and moves down the first few steps until they’re level with one another again, looking down to find Isaac’s hand, before lacing their fingers together. There’s nobody to mock Isaac for being weak here, nobody to look at their hands and laugh. And it’s as much of an offer of strength as anything, because Isaac takes a deep breath and nods, and the next step, they take together.

The freezer is gone.

The chains are gone, the broken glass is swept up, the shelving and other mishmash of items are completely removed. It’s just an empty basement, but Scott feels like he can still smell blood, can still see a boy scream as he’s dragged across the floor.

“It was over there,” Isaac finally says dryly, and he pulls Scott with him, past the claw marks in the floor, to the wall where the freezer once stood. There are marks on the concrete from it, a dim outline in the dust, and Isaac crouches, pulling Scott down with him to look at it.

Scott realizes then, that there’s always going to be a part of Isaac in this basement. There were pieces of him, stripped and cut away here, locked in this room, just as he himself had been trapped in that freezer. This is why he said yes, this is why he tried to run and be a part of something he didn’t yet understand, why he’d thrown his life in Derek’s teeth and done whatever was asked of him. The thought of it made his chest tighten painfully, and he squeezed hard at Isaac’s fingers, feeling his hand be gripped tight in turn.

“…you don’t belong here anymore,” Scott finally says quietly, watching the way Isaac’s tight shoulders seemed to ease a fraction at the reassurance. “You can leave. And- and maybe things will still be hard, and people will keep getting hurt, but my mom and I are going to take care of you, alright? You never have to come back. You’re… you’re never going to be trapped here again.”

“-promise?”

Isaac’s eyes are round in the dark, looking up toward Scott in a moment of rare vulnerability, and Scott’s heart breaks for him, in the way that it broke when he first saw this basement, when he first tasted the desperation that Isaac had lived with every day.

“I have- I have dreams, sometimes. I’m still here.” Isaac shakes his head while he speaks, his free hand tracing the outline of where the freezer used to be. “And it’s dark, but he forces me in, he puts his hand on the lid, and- and he’s not _him_ anymore, he’s a mangled corpse. Or he’s Derek, or he’s you, and he closes the lid, and… and you know, how sometimes, in dreams, when you just _know_ something?”

Scott nods mutely, but he’s gripping onto Isaac’s hand so hard, his knuckles are turning white. Isaac is trying not to lose it, he knows, and if he can keep him grounded- if he can just keep him in this reality, where he doesn’t have to go back…

“I just know that nobody will ever open it again. That I’m trapped there forever.” Isaac’s voice breaks, and he swallows thickly, mouth dry. “…I think Hell is a box, Scott. And I’m not- I’m not weak, and I’m not that person anymore, but I can still feel walls at my fingertips.”

He knows. Scott has heard his heart rate spike in the middle of the night, he’s stood in the hallway with his ear pressed against the door and listened to the soft cries of the nightmare. He’s wrapped his arms around Isaac’s shoulders and murmured him through the cold sweat and the struggle of being trapped, he’s gotten water and asprin, and on a rare occasion, the heavy sleeping medication his mom keeps on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.

And maybe Isaac needed this. Maybe he needed to come and visit his childhood home, to say goodbye to his demons and let them go. Maybe this is part of the closure- Scott isn’t optimistic enough to think that the nightmares will stop, but more than anything, he just wants Isaac to let go of this. To accept that nobody is going to lock him up, to let his guard down in front of authority figures, and not creep around with an apprehensive stare, like he’s expecting to be hit.

“I won’t let that happen,” Scott shuffles in a little closer to him, slings his free hand over Isaac’s shoulder. Pack, warmth, reassurance, and he feels the other boy ease a fraction under his arm. Good. “I’ll protect you. Just like you protect me. Do you trust me?”

There’s a soft nod.

“Then trust me on this, okay? I won’t let anything like this happen to you again. I promise.”

_

Scott doesn’t know how long they sit there for, in the cold basement of what used to be Isaac’s house. But eventually, the echoes of the screams seem to fade from the walls, and he’s pretty sure it’s just his imagination, but the claw marks don’t look quite as pronounced anymore. In the short time they’re in here, the nightmare becomes just another room, smelling of dust and cobwebs, and when Isaac stands, pulling Scott with him, there’s the faintest of smiles tugging on the corner of his lips.

“This was a dumb idea, wasn’t it?”

And he doesn’t even have to look at Scott for an answer. Isaac’s fingers loosen on his own, and Scott can feel the blood slowly returning to his fingers.

It’s just a basement. Just a house. The personality has drained from the brick and plaster, and when they crawl back out the window, Isaac lands perfectly on his feet and laughs, for the first time in what feels like forever.


End file.
